Walking in Wisdom (5:15-17)

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Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (5:15-17)

The word fool commonly refers to a person who acts unintelligently and irresponsibly. But Scripture defines a fool as a person who says “in his heart, ‘There is no God’” and who is morally corrupt, doing “abominable deeds” (Ps. 14:1). The fool is the person who lives apart from God—either as a theological or practical atheist or as both, denying God by his actions as well as his words. The supreme fool is the person who has anti-God thinking and living patterns.

Because men are born separated from God and with hearts that are naturally against Him (Rom. 5:8, 10; Eph. 2:3; Col. 1:21), they are born spiritually foolish. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:21-22). “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). The natural man has the most important things in life exactly reversed. Consequently, he thinks foolishness is wisdom and wisdom is foolishness.

No man can live without a god of some sort, and the spiritual fool inevitably substitutes a false god for the true God. He creates gods of his own making (Rom. 1:21-23) and, in effect, becomes his own god, his own authority in all things. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes” (Prov. 12:15), and therefore he determines right and wrong and truth and falsehood entirely by his own fallen thinking and sinful inclination.

When the fool sets himself up as his own god, he will naturally “mock at sin” (Prov. 14:9). Sin is that which is against God, and since the fool does not recognize God, he does not recognize sin. The spiritually self-sufficient fool makes his own rules and justifies his own behavior, and in doing so he refuses to acknowledge sin and its consequences.

The fool cannot help spreading his foolishness. The more he is convinced of the wisdom of his folly, the more he will seek to propagate it. By what he says and by what he does he gives continual testimony to his denial of God, to his becoming his own god, and to his mocking of sin. No matter what his intellectual level, academic achievements, talents, wealth, or reputation, the mouth of the natural man can spiritually do nothing but spout folly (Prov. 15:2).

The unregenerate person is a fool because he denies God by belief and by practice. He is a fool because he becomes his own god. He is a fool because he mocks sin. And he is a fool because he contaminates the rest of society with the ungodly foolishness that damns his own soul. He bequeaths his legacy of foolishness to his children, his friends, and his society—to everyone who falls under the influence of his folly.

“Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord,” the writer of Proverbs says of fools, “they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be satiated with their own devices, for the waywardness of the naive shall kill them, and the complacency of fools shall destroy them” (Prov. 1:29-32).

The knowledge that the ungodly person hates is not practical, factual knowledge. On the contrary, he prides himself in how much he knows. Someone has estimated that, if all of man’s accumulated knowledge from the beginning of recorded history to 1845 were represented by one inch, what he learned from 1845 until 1945 would amount to three inches and what he learned from 1945 until 1975 would represent the height of the Washington Monument! Since then it has probably doubled. Few people, however, would argue that the incredible leap in scientific, technological, and other such knowledge has been paralleled by a corresponding leap in common sense wisdom, not to mention spiritual and moral wisdom. If anything, man’s understanding of what he is and doing and why he is doing it seems to decrease as his practical knowledge increases. The more learned he becomes in that superficial kind of knowledge, the less need he sees for the knowledge that comes only from God.

Therefore the ultimate destiny of fools is that they are “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7) and they “die for lack of understanding” (Prov. 10:21) even while accumulating great amounts of information. They become smarter and more foolish at the same time. Foolishness comes from trusting in purely human knowledge and excluding divine knowledge. Men’s foolishness increases with their knowledge only when their self-reliance increases. The natural, unregenerate man suffers from his congenital and terminal foolishness because he will not submit to God. He accumulates vast knowledge apart from God, but spiritual understanding and divine wisdom elude him. He hates the truth about sin and salvation.

Wisdom begins with fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7) and continues by acknowledging His truth and ways. “Righteous men, wise men, and their deeds are in the hand of God” (Eccles. 9:1). The way to wisdom and the way to life is the way of God. The only power that can overcome a man’s foolishness and turn him to wisdom is salvation, turning to God through Jesus Christ. Turning from foolishness to wisdom is turning from self to God. And it is God’s own Word that is “able to give [us] the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).

The kind of wisdom the Bible praises is not that prized by the ancient Greeks who were Paul’s contemporaries. Their wisdom was characterized by philosophy and sophistry, the endless spinning and discussion of theories that have no real relation to life, that have no bearing on God or on practical living. The Greeks could, and often did, go from philosophy to philosophy without changing their basic attitudes or their basic way of life. They were simply playing the game of philosophy, with the sort of wisdom that does not want to come to the knowledge of the truth, because—unlike hypotheses and speculations—truth demands recognition, acceptance, and change.

In Scripture, on the other hand, wisdom is centered in conviction and behavior, specifically in recognizing and obeying God. When a person is saved he is moved from the realm of foolishness into the realm of wisdom. Just as his being a Christian leads him to walk worthily (4:1), humbly (4:2), in unity (4:3-16), separated from the world’s ways (4:17-32), in love (5:1-7), and in light (5:8-14), it also leads him to walk in wisdom (5:15-17).

In the present passage, Paul mentions three things that the Lord’s wisdom teaches His child. The wise believer knows his life principles, his limited privileges, and his Lord’s purposes.

THE BELIEVER’S LIFE PRINCIPLES

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, (5:15)

The literal meaning of the Greek term translated be is “look, or observe,” and Paul’s command for believers to see that they walk carefully is based on what he has just been teaching. Therefore refers immediately back to the apostle’s call for believers to walk as those who have been raised from the dead and are living in Christ’s light (v. 14). It also reaches even further back to build upon his call for believers to be imitators of their heavenly Father (5:1). Christians are to walk wisely rather than unwisely because they are God’s beloved children, saved through the sacrifice of His beloved Son (5:1-2). Only the wise walk befits the children of God.

Paul commands believers to walk… as wise men. Just as they are to walk in humility, unity, separation, love, and light (4:1-5:14), they are also to walk in wisdom. In other words, they are to live like the people they are. In Christ we are one, we are separated, we are love, we are light, and we are wise—and what we do should correspond to what we are.

At salvation every believer has been made wise. Paul wrote to Timothy: “You have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). By God’s grace, the saved “are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Just as in Christ God miraculously makes us immediately righteous, sanctified, and redeemed, He also makes us immediately wise. The moment we were saved we became a repository of wisdom that henceforth renders us responsible for our behavior. Because we are in Christ, “the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” that are hidden in Him (Col. 2:3) are therefore also hidden in us. John wrote of the Holy Spirit, the resident truth teacher in the life of every saint: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it” (1 John 2:20-21). Further, he said, “You have no need for anyone [any human teacher with simply human wisdom] to teach you,” because “His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true” (v. 27). We cannot have salvation without God’s wisdom any more than we can have salvation without his righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

“Easy-believism” is a bane of the contemporary church because, among other things, it purports to offer salvation in segments. First it is claimed that men are born again by accepting Christ as Savior. Then, as they grow in grace, they may renounce sin; start pursuing righteousness, sanctification, and wisdom; and receive Him as Lord. But Paul said, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12). The very first instruction of the gospel to the saved person is to renounce and forsake sin and to live a godly, righteous life. That instruction, or wisdom, is a part of the new birth, not something subsequent to it.

As Jesus made clear in the Beatitudes, among the first and most necessary marks of salvation are mourning over sin and hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Matt. 5:4, 6). As Paul made clear in the beginning of this letter, “In all wisdom and insight [God] made known to us the mystery of His will” (Eph. 1:8-9).

It is not that we do not grow in wisdom as we mature in the Christian life. We are specifically commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18). As we become more and more conformed to our Lord and Savior, we will grow more and more in His love, joy, peace, and in every other fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). In another of God’s divine paradoxes, we grow in what we have already been given in fullness. We grow practically in what we already possess positionally. Even Jesus “kept increasing in wisdom” (Luke 2:52), and some believers in the Jerusalem church were “full of… wisdom” (Acts 6:3).

Speaking to believers, James said, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). Paul prayed that the Colossian believers would “be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” and that they would “let the word of Christ richly dwell within [them], with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another” (Col. 1:9; 3:16). The believer begins his new life in Christ with all the wisdom necessary to live for His Lord, but he is also to continually grow in wisdom, that he can be even more mature, more faithful, and more productive in His service.

Akribōs (careful) has the basic meaning of accurate and exact, and carries the associated idea of looking, examining, and investigating something with great care. It also carries the idea of alertness. As believers walk through the spiritual mine field of the world, they are to be constantly alert to every danger that Satan puts in their way. That is why Jesus warned that “the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life” (Matt. 7:14).

If it had not been written centuries before the time of Paul, Proverbs 2 would appear to be a commentary on Ephesians 5:15. Throughout the chapter the writer of Proverbs speaks of walking in the wise path and the wise way and of not going into the way of the wicked or straying into the company of evil people. Similarly, the first Psalm speaks of the blessed man as the one “who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers” (v. 1).

The idea of walking carefully and accurately in God’s way is the theme of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Every incident, conversation, and observation in that great classic of Christian literature focuses on obeying or disobeying, heeding or ignoring, following or departing from God’s divine path for Christian living.

When I was a young boy I once walked across a narrow stream on a log that had numerous small branches sticking out of it. When a friend called to me I was momentarily distracted and tripped on one of the branches. I was already past the water and I fell into a bush of nettles on the shore. Because I had on only a swim suit, I was scratched rather painfully and the plant’s microscopic needles were embedded over a large part of my body. That is a picture of what can happen to a believer when He is distracted from God’s way.

When Christians sin and fall into Satan’s traps, they do so because they live as unwise men, rather than as wise. They revert to following the wisdom of their old lives, which was really foolishness. “For we also once were foolish ourselves,” Paul said, “disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another” (Titus 3:3). That is the kind of living from which God’s wisdom is to separate us. “When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (vv. 4-6). Our change in relationship to God is meant to bring a change in daily living, as Paul went on to explain to Titus: “Concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed may be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men” (v. 8).

After David had twice spared his life, the jealous and hypocritical Saul confessed that he had “played the fool and [had] committed a serious error” in seeking to take David’s life (1 Sam. 26:21). Some years later, after David himself had become king, he proudly decided to take a census of his people. But “David’s heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have acted very foolishly.’” (2 Sam. 24:10).

As we learn from David and from many others in Scripture, believers are not immune from reverting to foolishness. The first way a believer plays the fool is by not believing God completely. He believes God for salvation but does not continue to believe Him in and for everything else. Jesus told the two disheartened disciples on the road to Emmaus, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). To the extent that we do not accept any part of God’s Word, to that extent we are foolish.

A believer also plays the fool when he is disobedient. “You foolish Galatians,” Paul said; “who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?… Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1, 3). By failing to hold firmly to the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, the Galatians fell prey to the heresy that a Gentile must become a ceremonial Jew before he could become a Christian.

Believers also play the fool when they put their hearts on the wrong things. Paul told Timothy, for example, that “those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9). It is tragic that so many Christians foolishly do not take God at His word in everything He says, do not obey Him in everything He commands, and desire so many things that He warns against. There is no excuse for Christians to live foolishly when God’s wisdom belongs to them. “If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, “Jesus said to the Jews (John 7:17). The Christian who genuinely wants to know God’s truth will never be in doubt, either. He has all the resources he needs “to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil” (Rom. 16:19).

Many people in the world are fanatically dedicated to an ideology, a religion, or a fad. The devoted Communist sacrifices everything for the party. The cultist will give all his earnings to his guru. The physical fitness enthusiast will never miss an exercise class or eat an extra calorie. By means of incredible self-discipline, men seeking acceptance with their deities have trained themselves to walk on beds of coals and lie on beds of nails as evidence of their religious commitment.

Some years ago I met a recently converted young woman who was a nationally ranked distance runner. To keep in shape she ran fifteen miles a day. A month or so later she came up to me after a morning worship service and asked if I remembered her. She seemed familiar but had changed so much during that brief time that I did not recognize her. She told me who she was and explained that she had contracted a disease that the doctors had not yet been able to diagnose and that left her barely able to walk. Rather than being discouraged, however, she said that she was determined to channel the discipline that had made her such a fine athlete into discipline for the things of the Lord. That is the mark of a wise Christian.

THE BELIEVER’S LIMITED PRIVILEGES

making the most of your time, because the days are evil. (5:16)

It is common not to finish what we begin. Sometimes a symphony is unfinished, a painting uncompleted, or a project left half-done because the musician, painter, or worker dies. But usually it is simply the death of a person’s commitment that causes the incompletion. Dreams never become reality and hopes never materialize because those working toward them never get beyond the first few steps. For many people, including many Christians, life can be a series of unfinished symphonies. Even in the familiar opportunities of everyday Christian living, those who are truly productive have mastered the use of the hours and days of their lives.

Whether in the artistic, business, personal, or spiritual realm, no one can turn a dream into reality or fully take advantage of opportunity apart from making the most of [his] time.

Paul did not here use chronos, the term for clock time, the continuous time that is measured in hours, minutes, and seconds. He rather used kairos, which denotes a measured, allocated, fixed season or epoch. The idea of a fixed period is also seen in the use of the definite article in the Greek text, which refers to the time, a concept often found in Scripture (cf. Ex. 9:5; 1 Pet. 1:17). God has set boundaries to our lives, and our opportunity for service exists only within those boundaries. It is significant that the Bible speaks of such times being shortened, but never of their being lengthened. A person may die or lose an opportunity before the end of God’s time, but he has no reason to expect his life or his opportunity to continue after the end of his predetermined time.

Having sovereignly bounded our lives with eternity, God knows both the beginning and end of our time on earth. As believers we can achieve our potential in His service only as we maximize the time He has given us.

An ancient Greek statue depicted a man with wings on his feet, a large lock of hair on the front of his head, and no hair at all on the back. Beneath was the inscription: “Who made thee? Lysippus made me. What is thy name? My name is Opportunity. Why hast thou wings on thy feet? That I may fly away swiftly. Why hast thou a great forelock? That men may seize me when I come. Why art thou bald in back? That when I am gone by, none can lay hold of me.”

Exagorazō (making the most of) has the basic meaning of buying, especially of buying back or buying out. It was used of buying a slave in order to set him free; thus the idea of redemption is implied in this verse. We are to redeem, buy up, all the time that we have and devote it to the Lord. The Greek is in the middle voice, indicating that we are to buy the time up for ourselves—for our own use but in the Lord’s service.

Paul pleads for us to make the most of our time immediately after he pleads for us to walk wisely rather than foolishly. Outside of purposeful disobedience of God’s Word, the most spiritually foolish thing a Christian can do is to waste time and opportunity, to fritter away his life in trivia and in half-hearted service of the Lord.

Shakespeare wrote,

Napoleon said, “There is in the midst of every great battle a ten to fifteen minute period that is the crucial point. Take that period and you win the battle; lose it and you will be defeated.”

When we walk obediently in the narrow way of the gospel, we walk carefully, making the most of our time. We take full advantage of every opportunity to serve God, redeeming our time to use for His glory. We take every opportunity to shun sin and to follow righteousness. “So then,” Paul said, “while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal. 6:10).

For His own reasons, God allows some of His children to live and serve far into old age. Others He grants only a few years or even a few weeks. But none of us knows how long or short his own allocation of time will be.

When I was a boy I had a friend who, like myself, planned to be a pastor. He often told me of his plans to finish high school, go to college and seminary, and enter the pastorate. But in the twelfth grade my friend was driving his canvas-top coupe down a street and the brakes suddenly locked, catapulting him through the car top and onto the street. He struck his head against the curb and was killed instantly.

The great sixteenth-century reformer Philipp Melanchthon kept a record of every wasted moment and took his list to God in confession at the end of each day. It is small wonder that God used him in such great ways.

Many biblical texts stand as warning beacons to those who think they will always have time to do what they should. When Noah and his family entered the ark and shut the door, the opportunity for any other person to be saved from the flood was gone. Because King Ahab disobeyed God by sparing the life of the wicked Ben-hadad, he was told by a prophet, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people’” (1 Kings 20:42).

The five foolish virgins who let their oil run out before the bridegroom came were shut out from the wedding feast (Matt. 25:8-10). “We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day,” Jesus said; “night is coming, when no man can work” (John 9:4). To the unbelieving Pharisees He said, “I go away, and you shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come” (John 8:21). After centuries of God’s offering His grace to Israel, Jesus lamented, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matt. 23:37). Judas, the most tragic example of wasted opportunity, spent three years in the very presence of the Son of God, as one of the inner circle of disciples, yet he betrayed His Lord and forfeited his soul for thirty pieces of silver.

Peter said, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth” (1 Pet. 1:17). In his farewell remarks to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, Paul said, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:24). Paul’s course was prescribed by God, and within that course he would minister to the utmost until his last breath. He was determined to run with endurance the race that was set before him (see Heb. 12:1). At the end of his life he therefore could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).

David had a great awareness of time. He prayed, “How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? …Remember what my span of life is” (Ps. 89:46-47). In the midst of his distress, anxiety, and pain he felt diverted from what he ought to be doing and deserted by God. He therefore asked God how long he would be sidetracked. He knew that he would live for only so long and that whatever he did for the Lord would have to be done during that time. On another occasion he prayed, “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the extent of my days, let me know how transient I am. Behold, Thou hast made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Thy sight” (Ps. 39:4-5).

Paul spoke to the Corinthians about the time having been shortened (1 Cor. 7:29), and James warned, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:13-14).

Kefa Sempangi (whose story is told in the book A Distant Grief, Regal Books) was a national pastor in Africa and barely escaped with his family from brutal oppression and terror in his home country of Uganda. They made their way to Philadelphia, where a group of Christians began caring for them. One day his wife said, “Tomorrow I am going to go and buy some clothes for the children,” and immediately she and her husband broke into tears. Because of the constant threat of death under which they had so long lived, that was the first time in many years they had dared even speak the word tomorrow.

Their terrifying experiences forced them to realize what is true of every person: there is no assurance of tomorrow. The only time we can be sure of having is what we have at the moment. To the self-satisfied farmer who had grandiose plans to build bigger and better barns to store his crops, the Lord said, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you” (Luke 12:20). He had already lived his last tomorrow.

The experience of that African family also dramatically points up the truth that the days are evil. We are to make the most of our opportunities not only because our days are numbered but because the world continually opposes us and seeks to hinder our work for the Lord. We have little time and much opposition.

Because the days are evil, our opportunities for freely doing righteousness are often limited. When we have opportunity to do something for His name’s sake and for His glory, we should do so with all that we have. How God’s heart must be broken to see His children ignore or halfheartedly take up opportunity after opportunity that He sends to them. Every moment of every day should be filled with things good, things righteous, things glorifying to God.

By the days are evil Paul may have specifically had in mind the corrupt and debauched living that characterized the city of Ephesus. The Christians there were surrounded by paganism and infiltrated by heresy (see 4:14). Greediness, dishonesty, and immorality were a way of life in Ephesus, a way in which most of the believers had themselves once been involved and to which they were tempted to revert (4:19-32; 5:3-8).

Less than a hundred years after Paul wrote the Ephesian epistle Rome was persecuting Christians with growing intensity and cruelty. Believers were burned alive, thrown to wild beasts, and brutalized in countless other ways. For the Ephesian church the evil times were going to become more and more evil. Several decades after Paul wrote this epistle, the Lord commended the church at Ephesus for its good works, perseverance, and resistance to false teaching. “But I have this against you,” He continued, “that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:2, 4). Because the church continued to languish in its devotion to the Lord, its lampstand was removed, as He had warned it would be if the believers there failed to “repent and do the deeds [they] did at first” (v. 5). Sometime during the second century the church in Ephesus disappeared, and there has never been a congregation there since. Because the church at Ephesus did not heed Paul’s advice and the Lord’s own specific warning, it ceased to exist. Instead of helping redeem the evil days in which it existed, the church fell prey to them.

If a sense of urgency was necessary in the days of the apostles, how much more is it necessary today, when we are so much nearer the Lord’s return and the end of opportunity (see Rom. 13:11-14)?

When pastor Kefa Sempangi, mentioned above, began ministering at his church in Uganda, growth was small but steady. Idi Amin had come into military and political power and the people expected conditions in their country to improve. But soon friends and neighbors, especially those who were Christians, began to disappear. One day pastor Sempangi visited the home of a family and found their young son standing just inside in the doorway with a glazed looked on his face and his arms transfixed in the air. They discovered he had been in that state of rigid shock for days, after being forced to witness the inexpressibly brutal murder and dismembering of everyone else in his family.

Faced with a totally unexpected and horrible danger, pastor Sempangi’s church immediately realized that life as they had known it was at an end, and that the very existence of the Lord’s people and the Lord’s work in their land was threatened with extinction. They began continuous vigils of prayer, taking turns praying for long hours at a time. When they were not praying they were witnessing to their neighbors and friends, urging them to receive Christ and be saved. The church stands today and it has not died. In many ways it is stronger than ever. Its lampstand is still very much in place and shining brightly for the Lord, because His people made the most of the time, did not succumb to the evil days in which they lived, and would not leave their first love. It cost many of them dearly, but they proved again that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

THE LORD’S PURPOSES

So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (5:17)

Do not be foolish repeats and reinforces Paul’s previous plea for believers not to be unwise, and understand what the will of the Lord is expands and makes more explicit his plea to walk wisely (v. 15).

In light of the urgency to make the most of our time, not being foolish includes, among other things, not becoming anxious or panicked. When we look around at the pervasiveness of evil and at the unending needs for evangelism and service to others in Christ’s name, it is easy to be overwhelmed. We are tempted either to give up and withdraw or to become hyperactive, losing precision, purpose, and effectiveness in a frenzy of superficial activity.

The proper sense of urgency, however, drives the wise believer to want more than ever to understand what the will of the Lord is, because he knows that only in the Lord’s will and power can anything good and lasting be accomplished. He will not be foolish by running frenetically in every direction trying to see how many programs and projects he can become involved in. Such activity easily becomes futile and leads to burnout and discouragement, because it works in the power of the flesh even when it is well-intentioned. Trying to run ahead of God only puts us further behind in His work.

The work of many churches would be greatly strengthened if the number of its superfluous programs and activities were cut back and the Lord’s will were sought more carefully and the principles of His Word applied more faithfully. When our priorities are God’s priorities, He is free to work in us and through us to accomplish great things; but when our priorities are not His priorities He can do little with us because He has little of us.

The unwise believer who behaves in a foolish manner tries to function apart from God’s will, and is inevitably weak, frustrated, and ineffective, both in his personal life and in his work for God. The only cure for such foolishness is to find and to follow the will of the Lord.

God’s basic will is, of course, found in Scripture. Here we find His perfect and sufficient guidelines for knowing and doing what is pleasing to him. But the will of which Paul seems to be speaking here is the Lord’s specific leading of individual believers. Although His plans and directions for each believer are not found in Scripture, the general principles for understanding them are there. God does not promise to show us His will through visions, strange coincidences, or miracles. Nor does He play a divine guessing game with us, seeing if we can somehow stumble onto His will like a small child finds an egg at an Easter egg hunt. God’s deepest desire for all of His children is that they know and obey His will, and He gives us every possible help both to know and to obey it.

God’s will for our lives is first of all to belong to Him through Jesus Christ. His first and primary will for every person is that he be saved and brought into the family and kingdom of God (1 Tim. 2:3-4). God’s will is also that we be Spirit-filled. As Paul went on to teach in the following verse, we are not to “get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18).

We experience God’s will by being sanctified. “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3), Paul said. And we enjoy His will through proper submission to other men. “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet. 2:13-15). Likewise we are to be submissive to leaders in the church: “Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account” (Heb. 13:17).

God’s will may include suffering. “If when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (1 Pet. 2:20; cf. 3:17; 5:10). God’s will culminates in believers’ giving thanks no matter what. “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18).

When a person is saved, sanctified, submissive, suffering, and thankful, he is already in God’s will. “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:4), David tells us. In other words, when we are what God wants us to be, He is in control and our will is merged with His will, and He therefore gives us the desires He has planted in our hearts.

Jesus is our supreme example for fulfilling the commands of Ephesians 5:15-17. He always functioned according to the divine principles established by His Father: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19; cf. v. 30). Second, Jesus knew that His time of earthly ministry was short and would soon be cut off, as seen in frequent sayings such as “My time has not yet come” and “My time has come.” He always functioned according to His limited privilege of time and opportunity, using every moment of His life in His Father’s work. Third, Jesus always functioned according to the His Father’s purposes. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34).

“Therefore,” Peter said, “since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God” (1 Pet. 4:1-2).

The words of David sum up the proper reaction to this teaching: “I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way” (Ps. 101:1-2, KJV).